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Eagle Mountain, Utah, United States
My name is Lauren, and I live in the bubble. I am wife to Marshall, the biggest BYU fan in the world; and mother to Carly, our big girl, and Wes, our wild man, and Calvin, our new addition. I graduated BYU with a degree in Social Work, and I went forth to serve at LDS Family Services. I like scrapbooking and going out to eat at nice restaurants. I am fascinated by new cleaning products at the grocery store, so I have to shop in wide circles around the perimeter to avoid the temptation to buy. I love chocolate.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Some Carly firsts in 2012

Carly had some big girl firsts this last year that I wanted to document.

In August she started soccer.  At this age it's mostly magnet ball, but it was still really fun to watch.  Her team was the "Tiny Ninjas."





Throughout her season, she scored 4 or 5 goals, and had a lot of fun.  She wasn't as tentative as some of the kids out there, but could definitely stand to be more aggressive.  Her favorite part was going to get ice cream after the games.

August 28th- first day of school.  I can't believe my baby is big enough for kindergarten!

She had to pick out her own outfit, and her hair had to be in a ponytail.  Not opinionated at all.

Walking to school with a neighborhood friend.  





Yes, I was the creepy mom-a-razzi taking photos through the classroom window.
She is loving school and is sad when we have a holiday off.  In kindergarten they get a homework packet for the month and turn it in all at once at the end of the month.  This girl sits down and does the whole packet in 1 or 2 days at the beginning of the month and begs for more.  She is also loving learning how to read.  I knew she would!  We had tried introducing reading multiple times before school started.  Each time she would get mad at me and insist that she would learn once she went to school.  So stubborn!  I have no idea where she gets that from.

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

My kids amuse me

Yesterday I was playing one of those addictive puzzle games on my phone.  And I was failing the same level over and over again.  Wes was watching over my shoulder and said "It's okay Mommy! Failing means you are almost WINNING! Good job failing!"

Tonight for the bedtime story, my kids wanted to read Highlights and do a couple of those pictures where you find the hidden objects.  Carly was sitting there, concentrating so hard, and said under her breath "if I were me, where would I look for that paperclip?"

Conversation overheard between Carly and Wes:
Carly: Which planet is the largest?
Wes: Umm... Jupiter.
Carly: Okay, but which planet is the hottest?
Wes: Venus!

Today in the kitchen Wes was banging pot lids together.  Marshall told him to stop making racket.  Wes told him "But I'm practicing the cymbals!"


Who has been sneaking into my house and secretly teaching my kids?

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

2013

It's a new year, and I'm not much for resolutions.  But lots of my facebook friends are, which has led me to consider in the quiet of the evening, if there is some word, some value, I want to focus on this year.  A family theme.  A personal mission.

And being far from perfect, there are words flying through my head.  Ideas on how to better myself this year.  But days like today, a day when my tiny terrorists have cornered me in my room with a box of chocolates and the lifetime channel, I find it hard to be motivated to pick a happy adjective.

But they are now all asleep, and I have emerged from my foxhole to pick up the house and assess the damage.  I see the freshly waxed floor now covered with crushed chalk.  The broken Christmas ornaments and the back broken off my nutcracker for the 3rd time in a month, and the indications that some picky preschooler has gotten into my chocolates, and found some he didn't like.





But then I see the labels my 5-year-old has put on all the doors.  She is so excited to be sounding out words.  And I realize that I need to be more grateful.  I need to embrace what I have, even on aggravating days like today when it's the end of Marshall's 48 and I'm just ready to go to work tomorrow.

Translation: Mom and Dad's Room, Garage, Basement


And you know what?  This blog helps me to do that.  This blog is so chalk full of stories that my kids love to have me read to them, and I have missed a couple years worth now.  Stories that I can't remember anymore and I'm so sad I didn't document anywhere.  I mean, someday I will probably look back and laugh that Wes smashed chalk all over my kitchen less than a day after I waxed it.  So I'll take the pictures, and post them here.

And work on being a little more grateful this year.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Wonderland

So my Carly turned 5.

5!!!!

I can hardly believe it.



A month or so before her birthday, I asked her if she'd like a party (of course she did), and what kind of party she'd like.  She came back a few days later and informed me that she wanted an Alice party, because Alice in Wonderland is currently her favorite bedtime story.


For her party, my parents were able to come out and visit.  It was so nice to have them out to help.  We invited a bunch of Carly's friends and neighbors, and just about all of them came.  It was a lovely party.  Carly dressed up as Alice, of course.  I wore the Queen of Hearts crown, my mom was one of the Tweedles, Wes was the other, and my dad was the Mad Hatter.  Marshall even got into it and was the King of Hearts.



Wes, with Blaze.
The day of the party, it started raining, which made the umbrella vultures look quite fitting.





But it also meant that we couldn't play croquet on the lawn anymore, so these flamingo mallets had to come inside.  Quite sad after all the time and energy spent to paint them, and to make wickets out of 15 inch playing cards.



The other bad thing about the rain: the over crowding.  Since we could no longer use the yard, we were all shoved in to my kitchen.  It was tight, but I was assured no one minded.





We even had to break out the picnic table for extra seating, we had so many kids attend.



For drinks, we had pink lemonade.  Most of the kids really enjoyed pouring theirs from tea pots.





For lunch we served sandwiches and wraps, and watermelon.  Of course, we had "eat me" food picks.  And the watermelon was served balled from a watermelon tea pot.





For dessert, we had cupcakes.  Each cupcake had a white rose that had been painted half red.



For decorations, we hung placemat sized playing cards by the buffet, and garlands of playing cards from the sealing mixed in with paper lanterns and the like.






I also made some of the other birds from Alice in Wonderland.  The little hammer bird, 2 of the horn birds, and 6 of the pencil birds.  They were spread out on the tables and serving areas, but I didn't get any good pictures of them at the party.  Darn.  So you get to see them from the pictures I took while crafting.



I also framed a quote from Alice: "There'd be new birds; Lot of friendly "how-do-you-do" birds; Everyone would have a dozen blue birds; In that world of my own."

For party favors, I filled glass jars with pink lemonade mix, and put a "drink me" label on them, with mixing prep instructions.



For games, we had a pinata.  Funny story.  Carly and I worked on a pinata Cheshire Cat for days.  But ultimately the balloon we were using as our paper mache form collapsed, and the big round purple cat ended up looking like a wrinkled raisin.  So we used a store bought flower and added a face to make it look like one of the bully flowers from the movie.

But Carly was very specific about wanting her Cheshire Cat at the party, so my mom made this awesome cheshire cat out of cardboard and we used it for a game of "pin the tail."



When it came time to blow out the candles, she had to think real hard about her wish.





Wes approved of the cupcakes.



Calvin partied too.



Our big present to Carly (well, all the kids) this year was a playground.  Marshall spent the better part of 3 days turning this:

...into this:

Thank goodness my dad came and helped.  When we opened gifts, we opened the curtains to the backyard at the end, and Carly was super excited to see her playground.  We managed to build it and keep it secret from her the whole time.  Definitely a good surprise.

My parents' gift to the kids this year was this awesome teeter totter.  They are both in love with it.




It was a fun party for a special girl!!

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

2 minutes with Wes

Wes was his normal, fantastic little personality on Easter when trying to take the kids' photo.  He only sat for about 2 minutes of camera time before he just couldn't handle me saying "Wes sit still! Wes, look at the camera!  Wes, smile!" anymore.

When going back and looking at the pictures, trying to find a decent one to post, I felt the exhaustion of all that effort all over again.

I give you: 2 minutes with Wes.  Because a picture is worth a thousand words, so 24 is worth... well you get the picture. yuk yuk yuk.

Yes, these are all that I took.  Yes, just right in order.
Man, I just love him!

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Getting unpacked: The Playroom

We turned the 5th bedroom- a spare upstairs- into the playroom.  I looooove having a playroom.  It's so nice to have one place to shove all the toys.

The playroom; Before:




After:



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